Monday, August 14, 2017

Week 9: A bird pooped on me


Hola hola hola! 
Yesterday I hit 2 months in the mission, which is pretty weird. I've already been here in Torremolinos for almost three weeks!  I made French toast in the shape of twos to celebrate.
This week has kind of been a blur, it feels like every week I'm here goes faster and faster. On Tuesday we had district meeting and then we went to pizza hut afterwards. Pizza in Spain is WEIRD. the pizza I got was just a normal pepperoni pizza, but I had to specify that no, I didn't want those meats I had never heard of, I was fine without obscure vegetables... "sí, solamente pepperoni!" 
Hermana Johnson tells me that the "queso de cabra" pizza they have is pretty good, so I might have to try that next time. I really love district meeting though, we sing the mission song and have people assigned to share a miracle from the week, give tallers (like five minute talks--this week I'm giving one on how we can listen to the spirit), and we ask for advice with different investigators. Plus our district is just super fun. 
Tuesday night, I felt something hit my shoulder and then drip onto my arm. This isn't actually that out of the ordinary, since everyone's A/C is always dripping cold water onto the sidewalk from their balcony, but the thing that hit me was definitely warm (I'm sure you wanted to know that), so I looked up and lo and behold, a pigeon just chilling right on top of me. So I've officially been pooped on by a bird now, which is fun. I went and washed my arm, don't worry. 
On Wednesday night we ate with Lorenzo and Inma again, and as promised, we had rabbit. It was actually pretty good, just a lot of bones. Tasted like chicken. 
On Wednesday we also met with Amparo again. She said that she didn't smoke for two days last week. She's been smoking since she was twelve so she said that this was a huge miracle for her! She really wants to quit. She wanted to come to church, but this Sunday we went to pick her up and she didn't answer the door so we're not sure what happened. 
We also taught Victor again this week. I like teaching him because he's from Bolivia so he's a lot easier to understand than the Spaniards! He couldn't come to church either but we're meeting with him again on Wednesday. 
Giovanna, the menos activa, also wasn't able to come to church this week, since she had work. But when we called her to invite her to church on Saturday and she said she wouldn't be able to come, she did invite us to come visit this Tuesday so we're excited for that.
On Thursday we did a lot of cooking. I made breadsticks and hermana Johnson made this chicken bake thing for lunch, and then that night we made this banana/chocolate chip cake thing that was super good. One thing about Spain is that they don't actually have chocolate chips. So we bought chocolate bars and cut them up.  It worked great!  We also had watermelon and cut some to look like dresses (an idea from my little sister Megan and Melissa).  Here we are in our watermelon dresses.
 On Saturday we were knocking doors and someone opened their door who spoke English (like from England). Her words when she saw us were, "oh no, forget it! Go away!" This wasn't really that funny I guess, but we were dying laughing when she closed the door just because normally we don't understand people and she was just this old British lady telling us to forget it. Sorry, we're not forgetting it, English lady. 
Church yesterday was good. There was no one to play piano in sacrament meeting so I got to play... Which was a STRUGGLE. Definitely a lot of one - handed playing. It was a party. 
Sunday night we taught an investigator I hadn't met before, Lorenzo (different from Lorenzo and inma Lorenzo). He had a LOT of questions but he speaks so nice and clearly, easier to understand than anyone else I've met, and so I felt like I got 99% of what he was saying! The gift of tongues is so real. And the lesson went really well! He's really looking for the truth. 
In other news, apparently, it's weird to put things on the floor in Spain. We're sitting in McDonald's right now, emailing (obviously...) and my bag was sitting next to my feet on the floor, and a worker just took the chair out from beside me, moved it to the other side of the table where my bag was sitting on the floor, then picked up my bag from the floor and put it on the chair. So that was super random. Hermana Johnson just told me that that's a thing. Good to know. I will not be putting my bag on the floor in the future. 
There is a cool sandcastle in Torremolinos.  Hermana Johnson says it is always at the beach. It is made of sand. Apparently, It gets protected from the rain and lit up by candles at night.  There were some plastic super heros and princesses posing on the sand castle too.
The grocery store is about a ten minute walk. There are carts you use inside the store, and then you have your own pull along cart that you bring to the store and load your groceries into afterwards to pull home. There's a place to put your personal carts at the front of the store.
Normally we get milk, eggs, cereal, bread, chicken nuggets, pasta to cook with pesto, a couple chicken breasts, fruit, you know, just normal things. We also buy water because the water from our tap tastes weird. Here I am posing with my pull along cart.
Hermana Johnson also made me call someone this week. I do NOT like calling people on the phone in ENGLISH, so calling Victor in Spanish was fun. But I felt like he understood me and I understood him. That being said, I really hope I don't have to call anyone else for a LONG time.
When I've been preparing for my taller this week, I've been studying the talk by Elder Rasband from April about listening to the holy ghost. I really like how he talks about the way to get more promptings, more opportunities to serve, is by acting on the promptings you do get. And if you're not sure if it's a prompting, it might just be your own thoughts telling you to call a friend, just do it anyway. He also says how important it is to pray for opportunities to serve every day. I'm trying to do this more often and would encourage you all to try to do that too!
Here I am posing with the ocean behind. It is so beautiful here!
Talk to you in a week!
Love, hermana Walker

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